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As the Gov­ern­ment moves to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) af­ter the State of Emer­gency ends on Jan­u­ary 31, both the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert are urg­ing cau­tion, warn­ing that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion can dis­rupt eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly erod­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce has called for care­ful, time-bound im­ple­men­ta­tion of any ex­tra­or­di­nary se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, while re­tired Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al, for­mer Chief Staff Of­fi­cer Op­er­a­tions at the T&T De­fence Force, cau­tioned that the bill risks ex­ec­u­tive over­reach and the cre­ation of a po­lice state.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the cham­ber ac­knowl­edged the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to utilise ZOSOs to ad­dress se­ri­ous crime, re­it­er­at­ing that pub­lic safe­ty is crit­i­cal to na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic re­silience.